"moderation in everything" damaged my whole life

It's easy to have 20-20 hindsight.  In the light of visible results, we can work back through the woven threads and see where the bad choice turned what might have been a beautiful tapestry into one with clashing colors or premature dilapidation.  The temptation is to exclaim, "what the hell were they thinking," when excusing ignorance is probably a better alternative.

I was weaned at two months of age, but I refused a bottle so "the help*" taught me to drink from a sippy-cup.  At the age of six months, my doctor didn't like how passive I looked, and ended up diagnosing me as hypothyroid.  Family anecdotes describe how my mother was obliged to keep taking me to the doctor for YEARS to get my dosage correct.  I took a series of different prescription thyroid medications for over a half-century, until I decided to run a little experiment....

The final chapters of that experiment are recorded on this blog.  Short version:  my theoretical hypothyroidism was caused by malnutrition.  Careful supplementation and the use of OTC raw desiccated thyroid tablets have got me to where I have no symptoms.  Take THAT, medical industry!  A self-taught nobody healed herself without a damn bit of paid help!  (I got a LOT of help, though, from those who unselfishly share their knowledge and experience online, for free.)

I learned that I MUST get my vitaminA pre-formed (and the 23andMe service confirmed my genetic ineptitude at converting beta-carotene to A, and many other things).  I learned that I had to take METHYLcobalamin in sublingual form -- the cheap version (cyanocobalamin) is detrimental to my thyroid function, and the swallowed kind isn't nearly so well absorbed.  I learned that I must stay away from "vegetable oils" and that tallow is my best friend.  I learned that though I absorb nutrients decently from liver and oysters, I don't do it nearly so well from other foods, so careful supplementation of certain minerals is essential.  I learned, in short, that most of the nutrition "knowledge" out there is the worst kind of hearsay, superstition and ignorance.

But it wasn't only my low thyroid status that did the damage;  poor nutrition, both direct and through poor absorption had other repercussions.  The neurotransmitter issues are blatant to me now, but nobody ever had a clue before.

If only "convention wisdom" of the mid-twentieth-century had clung to the traditional, rather than being dazzled by the promises that Science could improve on Nature!  If only an old-fashioned insistence that children get their cod-liver oil and plenty of hearty nutrition-dense food had prevailed, instead of relying on "fortified" white bread, margarine, breakfast cereals, potatoes, and that so-very-common-sensical notion that snacks are fine IN MODERATION!  I got animal products in moderation, so that should be plenty, right?  Nothing wrong with daily popcorn or cookies or crackers, now, is there?  And certainly the narrow variety of canned vegetables we ate were just as good as fresh -- we were assured that they were picked at perfect ripeness and processed immediately, to preserve their vitamins.

Result:  a metabolism which was powered by the cheapest commodities -- wheat, corn oil and potatoes.  A metabolism run on glucose, in short, which promotes serotonin at the expense of dopamine.  Suboptimal levels of the fat-soluble vitamins, doubling-down on the damage -- "the family" disliked milk of more than 2% fat, hated lard and couldn't afford butter.  At least we weren't afraid of sunshine in those days....

What does serotonin do, though, as compared with dopamine?  Dopamine is responsible for the drive that makes us keep persevering in the face of discouragement, and serotonin is what tells us to relax ... and give up.  As a teen I remember coming home from school and taking a nap -- this is NOT normal behavior in a kid who is asleep by 10pm and drags herself out of bed in the morning when the alarm goes off minutes before having to leave for school.... 

The endocannabinoid dance is well-described by Chris Masterjohn, here.

Time-honored practices were handed down for centuries for a reason.  Before the age of advertisement, people learned every-day practices from one's parents, who learned it from theirs.  It worked, or we wouldn't be here.  I'm happy to say, at least what I've learned by studying my life and health will be of use to my grandchildren!

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*  before anyone leaps to the conclusion that my parents had means, it was CHEAP to get a little household help way back when I was an infant.  My grandmother probably paid her, anyway....